The Fire Artist (16 page)

“I noticed your hands. The first night I met you.” I try to shield my hands, to tuck them under my napkin. But he takes my right hand very gently in both of his. He turns my hand over, palm up. He traces my scars, my calluses. “You were burned, weren’t you,” he asks, as if he can read my hands, as if my palms are telling him a story.

“Yes.”

He doesn’t let go. He continues to trace lazy circles on my hand. I feel goose bumps on my arms. I look down at his fingers, long and elegant, charting the grotesque grooves in my hand.

He leans into me and whispers, “You stole your fire from
the sky, Aria.” There’s no judgment in his voice. His tone is completely absent the damnation that stealing elements brings.

I don’t answer with words. I answer with movement, with the barest of a nod. I’ve confessed, and it feels strangely freeing. I open my eyes.

“And you want to be fire naturally now,” he continues. “You want me to give you the gift of fire. It is the only way you can keep moving, keep living. Now that you’re in the M.E. Leagues, you need it even more. Because powerful people now know what you can do. And if you’re found out to have stolen your gift, terrible things will happen, and you will be exiled from the Leagues, and you need the Leagues for your very survival.”

I shudder, and it’s as if the heat between us has been extinguished, snuffed by the reminder of choices and consequences.

“You promise you won’t tell?”

“I told you. I’m bound by the laws of my kind. I don’t answer to theirs. I don’t care if you stole fire. In fact, I assume you had a completely valid reason.” He looks at my hands again. “I don’t have to assume, actually. I know you did.”

“Do you want to know how I did it?” I’m half-shocked at what I’m saying, but I so badly want him to know all the things I could never tell Jana or my mom or my brother because we were from the same place, the same people, the same rules.

Taj is not.

Here, with Taj, I’m able to let go of the walls and I find that I want to. That I’ve been wound too tight for far too long by too many secrets.

“Of course,” he says with a smile. “I enjoy knowledge more than almost anything else.”

“What do you enjoy more than knowledge?”

“Perhaps we’ll find out. But for now, tell me how you stole fire.”

I begin at the beginning, telling him about my brother, about his crimes, then the garage, the matches, the bandages on my hands, the trek through the swamp, the Lady and her snow gator.

“I’ve heard of snow gators.”

“You have?”

“Yes. I knew of someone who won a snow gator.”

“Won?”

“Sort of like in a bet. An exchange.”

“They say he became a snow gator because he ate an ice artist.”

“Maybe it’s the same gator,” Taj says.

“Maybe.” I continue my story, editing out only Elise’s name, as I detail how the lightning enters my body, how my fire sharpens and strengthens, like a climber scaling a mountain peak, then how it unspools, the same climber tumbling down. How my own fire chokes me as it wanes.

“Does it hurt? When the lightning hits?”

I shake my head. “Not really. I mean, it kind of burns. But I’m used to it.”

Taj holds up his hand; lets its hover near my chest, as if he can feel my charred heart.

“Do you want to feel my heart? Where the lightning goes in?”

“Very much so.”

I take his hand, press his palm against my chest, just above
my breasts. My skin is bare; I’m wearing only a tank top. My heart beats against his palm. His hands are so warm, but they’re no match for the heat in my heart.

Then the waitress brings our milkshakes and French fries and we let go.

We eat, and I know I want to drag out this wish for another night. Because this is the closest I’ve ever felt to freedom.

Figured it out? Color me intrigued. Did you find another air artist who’ll knock you out with lightning? Say it ain’t so. Have I been replaced so easily??? But seriously, if you have, that’s awesome. Do tell, do tell.

Xoxo, Elise

Are you crazy?? No way would I ever ever ever find another Dr. Frankenstein. You’re my one and only. But … shhh … I found another way … you know … THAT way …
1001 Arabian Nights
way … He’s beautiful too.

Love, me

The next morning, I grab my backpack, sling it over my shoulder, and pull my long hair into a high ponytail.

I lock my room, practically bounce down the stairs, and meet Gem outside to head to practice with her. Gem is wearing
silver flats today. They are covered in silver sequins. Her black hair is clipped back in a cascade of barrettes with bugs on them—a stylized ladybug, an elongated spider, even an ant.

“Cool hair bling.”

“Cool ponytail.”

“Right. It’s such a talent. My amazing ponytail-making ability,” I say drily as we hit the streets. I root around for a pen in the front pocket of my backpack. I find my favorite blue one, the one I jammed in there this morning when I woke up with it in my hand, and shout, “Gotcha, blue pen!”

“Chipper this morning, are we?” Gem raises an eyebrow as we stop at a red light.

“Maybe,” I say in the exact kind of tone someone would use if she were starting to like someone and wasn’t sure how to tell her friend yet. Instead, I finish off a doodle I started on my thigh last night when I couldn’t fall asleep. I kept replaying the moments at the diner, Taj’s hand on my chest, how his skin feels—well,
radiant
—against mine. I study the drawing, a kaleidoscope of ink and flesh, and I see patterned swirls and whorls bending and weaving, as if I were looking through a lens to see a psychedelic image. I wasn’t in the mood to mark up a too-school-for-cool model or sketch random thought bubbles in a magazine, so I took to my own flesh as a canvas. It’s my most elaborate body graffiti ever.

I cap the pen and drop it into my backpack as the light turns green.

Gem points to my leg. “That, my friend, is certifiably awesome.”

“Certifiable something, that’s for sure.”

“I totally want you to do one on me.”

“You do?” No one has ever asked me to draw on them before.

“Hell, yeah!”

“I thought you were waiting till you retired from the Leagues.”

“For an official tattoo. But you can do a temporary one. Can you do a badass flower? Like maybe a daisy with a scowl on its face?”

I laugh at the image. Gem has a little bit of Angel in her, and a little bit of Ferdinand the bull too. She plays backup for Mariska each night onstage, but what she’d really rather be doing is gardening. Making flowers. Growing sunflowers and pansies and daisies, her favorite.

“Could you make it wink too? Like a real sassy, saucy wink?” Gem demonstrates, scrunching up one side of her face in an exaggerated and ridiculous mangled wink.

“Your wish is my command,” I say, then I look away, blushing stupidly at what I just said, and how it returns me to another memory of last night. Telling Taj all those things. I felt safe telling him my secrets, and it’s almost as if I’m a little bit lighter now because of it, as if my shoulders have been unkinked after years of knotted muscles. Such a strange feeling, especially since none of my burdens are truly gone.

“So, after practice maybe?”

“Sure. But you have to do it on your leg.”

“Duh. Obviously,” she says, and bumps me. Thighs are always covered up, and while tattoos are forbidden in general, we can get away with homegrown markings on hidden skin.

I yawn as we pass a truck backing into an alley.

“Out late last night?”

“Actually, I was,” I say, and since it felt so freeing to tell Taj the truth, I decide to give Gem a little bit of honesty too. “I think I kind of had a date.”

“Think? You
think
? Spill. I want to know everything.”

I tell her. Not everything, not even close,
because I don’t breathe a word about his library or the way the underworld of New York City can shift and move like a secret map when you’re with a granter, but I tell her about second-acting a show. I tell her about the diner, about how we held hands, and how we’re going to see each other tonight too.

Gem grabs my arm. “What are you going to do tonight?”

I shrug. “I don’t actually know. We kind of play it by ear.”

“Wait. Is this someone you’ve been seeing before?”

“Just once. We met the other night.”

But it feels like I have known Taj for longer. I’m sure that’s what everyone says when they start to fall for someone. But maybe it’s a cliché for a reason. Because when it happens to you, it’s no longer a cliché. It’s the truth. I do feel as if I’ve known Taj for a long time, and it’s because he knows so much more about me than almost anyone.

“Well, what’s he like?”

“He’s smart and funny and kind of sarcastic, but in this weirdly clever way. And—” I stop before I say the next word, because I worry it might sound cheesy.

“And what?” Gem asks with a rabid smile.

“Soulful. He’s sort of soulful.”

“And anything else? How does he kiss?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if he wants to,” I admit, because I don’t. Sure, I felt a spark when he placed his hand over my heart, but I don’t know if he felt the same. Or if he can. Perhaps he was sweet to me simply so he could stay alive a little longer in between wishers. Maybe he is only nice because I’m his master. I must remind myself not to fall for him. I need things from him. And I have to find a way to pay for my wish. But how will I pay? With my life? I might have enjoyed talking to him, but if I get caught up in how free I feel with him, then I’ll lose sight of the prize—fire without stealing.

“You should kiss him tonight. Kiss him and report back to me.”

“Speaking of kissing reports, how’s it going with Henry from the jewelry-tattoo shop?”

A discussion about kisses carries us the rest of the way to the facility, up the stairs, and into the locker room, as if we’re floating on a well-drawn waft of something delicious—the morning-after conversation between friends.

I stop abruptly because the TV is on. The TV is never on. Gem and I turn to look at the screen hanging high in a corner. A news anchor with a severe blond bob talks seriously into the camera.

“In Chicago an eighteen-year-old boy was placed on probation from the Leagues for alleged grand larceny today. Reginald Cramer is being held without bail for theft of air powers, according to officials from the Leagues.”

A man in a pinstriped suit appears on the screen. His name flashes on the TV, and his title. Winston Cody. Head of Standards and Practices with the M.E. Leagues. “We’ve been investigating Reginald Cramer for several months now and have
amassed a substantial body of evidence that we believe demonstrates his theft of the air element more than three years ago. This is a serious violation of Leagues rules, given that performances in the elemental arts are highly regulated, protected, and pure. If he has, in fact, stolen his powers he will be banned and his family will also receive a lifetime ban from the Leagues.”

A reporter asks Mr. Cody a question. “How did Cramer allegedly steal his air powers?”

“The specifics are classified, I’m afraid. But suffice it to say he had an accomplice, and we’re fully expecting to apprehend his accomplice at any moment.”

The reporter tosses back to the blond-bobbed anchor, who recounts past cases of theft. “The last known case of theft of elemental arts occurred ten years ago, when a teenager in Saudi Arabia was found to have stolen water power. This occurred when the M.E. operated under different rules, and the teenager was promptly executed. In other news …”

I want to reach for Gem, to grab her, to tell her how awful this is. But I can’t let on that I have anything in common with Reginald Cramer. So when Gem shakes her head and mutters something like
how sad
, I do the same, mimicking, as if I’m just a normal artist who acquired powers the normal way, rather than a thief, the mirror image of this Chicago boy.

The news anchor begins talking about the stock market, but she’s cut off, and the piece starts over. It’s being played on a loop. The anchor’s voice is a rusty saw to me, and I have to get away from it, so I yank on my practice uniform and head to the field.

On the field, we move through our drills, running laps in
the rising morning heat, then sprints, then push-ups, then crunches. We separate according to our powers and begin rehearsing our tricks for the next shows, reviewing the familiar ones, improving the newer ones. As I shoot flames from my hands, I picture them, those who make the rules, those who require registries, those who get to decide who can and can’t be powerful, who get to deem the ways we can and can’t be successful. Those who don’t care if you had to steal just to survive.

Images of them—the rule makers—parade before my eyes. I grit my teeth, clench my jaw, and it’s easy, so insanely simple, to craft my fire twin this time.

Mattheus hoots and I’m shocked. I didn’t expect to replicate myself. I didn’t plan it. But as in Wonder, as in my brother’s warped world of underground raves in insane asylums, the fire has fled my body in the shape of me. Instinct kicks in, and I spread my arms over my head. My fire twin imitates me, creating an arc above her that shoots higher than mine, racing, sprinting to the sky. I clasp my hands instantly, and both she and her sparks are snuffed. Mattheus marches over to me, beaming.